Do Business Well

You have accepted your dream job, only to find, after a couple of months, that you are heading up a department of people you never would have hired yourself. Some are unmotivated, and some have the wrong temperament for the work. Others have troublesome personalities, and the rest appear to be incompetent. Worse yet, it is virtually impossible to terminate or transfer anyone, at least for a while.

Your assessment of the situation is really quite negative. So, under the circumstances, is there anything that you can do to salvage the operation?

“Part of the manager’s job is to get employees to be motivated, competent and productive,” says Martin M. Broadwell, president of The Center for Management Services, Inc., a consulting firm in Decatur, GA, and author of Supervising Technical and Professional People  “If a supervisor were not faced with that challenge, an essential part of his or her job would be missing.” Broadwell also offers these three basic suggestions:

• Assign a task force. “People are most likely to respond in solving a problem if they are given a role in creating the solution,” advises Broadwell. Call in your staff and explain the nature of the problem, whether it is one of morale, production or skills. Then set a team to work on formulating solutions and assure the members that you will take their suggestions seriously and supply whatever help you can.

• Individualize the problems. “When you say, ‘Our group has problems,’ what you really mean is that the individuals in the group have problems,” says Broadwell. It is important, then, to meet separately with each employee. First, explain your perception of how that person’s job should be done. Then describe specifically how you perceive the employee’s present performance. Next, request the employee’s input oh how he or she can bring these two perceptions into alignment. Last, list the consequences of the employee’s not improving, such as denial of raises or promotions.

• Provide effective training. Your staff must be trained in how to motivate, discipline and relate to the people they oversee. Those people, in turn, must be trained in how to perform their work effectively.

“Ninety-five percent of training is done incorrectly,” states Broadwell. “People make the mistake of simply using the showand-tell method.” Instead, he recommends that employees be told and shown what to do and then asked to repeat back, in their own words, what they have learned. Finally, they should demonstrate what they have learned. This process will help the training to sink in and will show the trainer whether employees have really grasped it.

Observation: Regardless of how unsuitable and hopeless your staff appears, avoid labeling or judging people as deadbeats or incompetents. Begin with the premise that you are going to turn things around and you face a much better chance of success.

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